Speed kills: road safety advocates cite truck-related concern

The worst fears collectively held by a broad coalition of road safety advocates across the country are about to realized, with a commercial truck-related rule they had hoped to see implemented before the end of the Obama administration almost certainly not being in place by that time.

That rule, proposed by both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, respectively, and long endorsed by legions of proponents, would mandate the inclusion of electronic speed-limiting technology in large trucks.

Is there a need for such a tool?

Consider the obvious, which we note on our personal injury website at the Pennsylvania law firm of Dallas W. Hartman P.C.: “Commercial trucks can be mammoth pieces of machinery, traveling down highways at high speeds, driven by operators who have been on the road for days or weeks.”

That likely conjures up some fairly quick and frightening imagery for many of our readers, as it certainly does for state and federal regulators who have long insisted that tractor-trailers and other 18-wheel rigs need to slow down.

The technology at issue would limit truck speeds to beneath 70 miles per hour. Notably, the safety measure — which has passed through a requisite public comment period — is supported by the huge national advocacy group American Trucking Associations.

Interestingly, not all truckers are not on board with the rule, though, with many independent drivers saying that the speed limiters would likely cause massive traffic jams across the country and, ironically, increase road risks and adverse outcomes.

That assessment is flatly dismissed by fans of the rule, with the principal spokesperson for one safety organization stating that its implementation simply reflects “common sense.”